


Prompt: You Don't Have To Stay

by notalone91



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Book 3: Mockingjay, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Hijacked Peeta, Other, POV First Person, Quick Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old post from a tumblr prompt sent by Char (universe93 on tumblr): "You Don't Have To Stay".<br/>Snippet dealing  with a district 13 interaction between Peeta and Katniss, (in a 'verse I may expand someday that would be canon-deviant from CF.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: You Don't Have To Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegoodgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodgirl/gifts).



      Two weeks.  Peeta had been back for two weeks and that was the first day they’d let me stay with him alone.  I say alone- but not unsupervised.  I knew there were people milling around behind the two way glass.  Even though they’d stopped making him wear the restraints all the time, part of the deal to let me sit with him alone was that he had to wear them.  Even though I hated seeing him tied to the bed like that and he hated having to be tied, we both agreed.  It was said to be “for my protection,” but it was more for the entertainment factor.  Even after being out of the reach of the Capitol, I was still being used.  The people of District 13 had, on every given occasion, proven to be no better than the rest of Panem.  
      Still, I was more than willing to put up with it if it meant I could be with him.  The doctors had long since cleared out after giving Peeta his last dose of sedative, meaning they’d be back soon for the next and that always made him more anxious.  Our previous chatter had quelled into silence.  I noticed him peek over at the clock before attempting turning away from me only to have the restraints keep him on his back.  “You don’t have to stay,“ he muttered.  
      “What?” I asked, taken slightly aback.  I knew he really didn’t want me to see him like this, but we’d been in much more vulnerable positions together, so it wouldn’t have felt right for me to leave.  All my life, I’d seen men and women sit at my mother’s kitchen table.  It was what you did for the people you love and, if what I’d been told about love was right, the feeling that someone was trying to tug my heart out of me through my feet that I got every time Peeta was in pain was a sure sign of it.   
      Peeta spoke again, a little louder.  “You don’t have to stay.”  
      “No, I heard you,“ I said, rising from my chair against the wall to his right and, dismissing the reaction I was sure it would garner from behind the mirror, I placed my hand on the bed next to his, letting him decide if it was okay for me to touch him.  "I just don’t understand…”  
      “I know you have somewhere else to be,” he said, voice low.  He looked at my hand tentatively before hooking one finger around mine, rubbing his thumb in tiny, repetitive circles over it.    
      Even that small gesture set my mind at ease.  My Peeta was still in there.  We’d get there.  I could be patient.  “Where would that be, exactly?” I asked playfully, wishing I could crawl in the bed next to him like we’d done so many nights on the train.  
      Sadness crept over him in a way I’d never really seen before.  “With him,” he said quietly, almost ashamed of himself, but still emphasizing the hurt.  
      “Him who?” I asked, trying to piece together who he could mean.   
      “The guy you’re always with.”  If I didn’t know better, he’d almost have sounded jealous.  
      “That would be you, Peeta.”  That was the truth.  Since he’d been rescued, I’d spent every second I could in his room, only leaving after he’d fallen asleep for the night and making sure they sent for me as soon as he was up the next morning, if I wasn’t already there.  Most of that time I spent with Prim, which he knew.  She even came with me to see him sometimes.  Finally, my brain landed on someone.  "Do you mean Haymitch?“  It made sense.  I myself had held him responsible for not getting him out at first, but that didn’t mean Peeta would have felt that way, too.  
      "No.  Before.  In the woods,” he answered.  Finnick?  Beetee?  Was there a ‘him’ from the first arena I could have been forgetting?  "Selling to… my father.  Walking Prim home from school.  The oldest Hawthorne boy.“    
      Oh.  
      _Oh._  
      I hadn’t even thought of him in days.  Gale was on some mission for Coin that I was expressly not to be a part of in any way shape or form.  No one had even brought him up to Peeta and he hadn’t asked.  I’d secretly hoped that the assuredness he’d had of that before would have stayed.  Softening a bit, I laced my fingers with his, suddenly cursing myself for agreeing to the restraints.  I needed to hold him.  He needed me so much closer for this.  "Peeta… Gale is… He’s not.”  
      “Not what?” he asked, my every word seeming to sour his mood like milk in summertime  
      “He’s… just a friend.”  I answered lamely.  Peeta would never have bought just a friend three years ago, why would I think he would now, especially when nothing made sense to him as it was.  "He’s important to me but he’s nothing special.“    That wasn’t enough.  That would never be enough to explain it to him.  I wished desperately for the words to come to me, but they just wouldn’t.  How could I describe the difference in the clear, concise words the doctors wanted me to use with him?  How could I describe the difference in any words at all when all I knew was that they were not the same?  Gale had never and could never make me feel all the things in all the ways Peeta me feel.  "He’s not you.”  
      “I’m not special either,” he said, pulling his hand away from mine. “You only think that because you’re supposed to kill me.”  
      I took a hesitant step back.  He hadn’t mentioned that in almost a week.  I didn’t want to set him off, but I knew I was supposed to remind him of what was going on now, not then.  I remembered my self- assuring list from before and tried to comfort him.  "Or you’re sick and you’re tired and the Tracker Jacker venom won’t let you believe what you know to be true.“  
      "And what’s that?” he spat.  
      I floundered for a moment until the silence became unbearable and I could only say one thing: “That I love you.”  
      And that was the wrong thing to say.  "Liar.“  He struggled against the bars of the bed until his wrists grew to be bright red.  
      "No,” I said, backing away from him little by little, not able to look away.  
      Before I could open my mouth again to tell him I wasn’t, Peeta was gone and the same snarling man they brought me in to see the first night was left in his place.  "Liar!  Mutt!“ he screamed, thrashing about, inciting a flurry of movement from behind the mirror and bursting through the door, Haymitch first, then the team.    
      "Peeta!”  I called, trying to rush to his side.  Venom or no, these District 13 doctors threatened me more than Peeta ever could and they weren’t taking me away from him.  Not again.  Not ever.  
      I shoved a few of the orderlies out of the way, trying to throw myself between them but found myself caught, as soon as I reached his hand.  "GET HER AWAY FROM ME!“  His fingers slipped through mine as I was carried out.  "HAYMITCH, GET HER OUT OF HERE!”  Is that who this was?  Haymitch?  I turned around to see that that’s exactly who had me and I relaxed, walking of my own volition alongside him until we reached the main hallway and he pulled me in tight.   
      Burying myself in his chest, I sobbed for a few minutes straight.  I don’t know how many people saw.  I don’t honestly care.  I’d been telling myself, ever since he’d been back, that I had to be strong.  That he was worse off than I am.  That I have no reason to cry.  I have Peeta here with me and I can see him and touch him and talk to him and that should be enough.  But it’s not.  He’s not Peeta anymore.  Not really anyway.   
      When I finally stopped crying, Haymitch asked quietly, “You alright, Sweetheart?”  Knowing he didn’t need a verbal response, I just looked up at him pointedly, as if to say do I seem alright?  "Okay, stupid question.  Anything I can do?“  
      Pondering that for a moment, I simply stated, "This is good.”  I thought back to how my father used to hold me when I was a little girl, and how later I did the same for Prim.  Even though those little girls and their world were worlds and lifetimes away, It was nice to still be able to find that comfort.  If it couldn’t be my dad, I was glad he was the one to do it.  "Thank you, Haymitch, for being here.  You never signed on for this, and you certainly didn’t have to, but still, here you are.“  He held me a little tighter and pressed his face against the top of my head.  "Everything else I need is in that room.”


End file.
